IN A sweeping constitutional breakthrough, the military junta in Myanmar has outlawed the word ‘foreign’ when used in conjunction with “aid”.

Yes, they wanted aid to help their distressed citizenry reeling from Cyclone Nargis but, no, they didn’t want pesky foreigners doling it out. But it was a democracy all the same not unlike Zimbabwe, which Myanmar looked up to as an exemplar because the African State believed so firmly that the sword was mightier than the pen, that the crime of “committing journalism” was an abomination before the Zimbabwean equivalent of Bangsa, Nusa dan Negara. “By Robert” whistled the military generals admiringly and promised the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, that they would complete democratic reform “on time” because they would pursue the process “for as long as it takes.” The junta was so bent on democracy that they were going through a referendum to approve a junta-drafted constitution despite the fact that one million people could have been dispossessed by the cyclone. And they were confident of its success because they had known the results three weeks earlier, proving once again that there was no substitute to hard work and meticulous planning. They took great pride in their new constitution, a bold document that was actually forward looking: it barred Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from holding public of! ce for the foreseeable future. The generals had thought things through because they were kindly people who loved defenceless animals especially if they came in a rich sauce. They didn’t let the small things get them down and weren’t fussed about whether the people were rich or poor so long as they had the money. “You can’t have everything,” they said to the masses reasonably. “Where would you put it?” It was a searching question which was why many Myanmar nationals searched for holes in their borders so that they could come to resource-rich countries like Malaysia to make a living. But Myanmar was probably more resource-rich than Malaysia which was why Asean had a policy of “constructive engagement” with it: they engaged so that their businesses could construct hotels and malls there. Indeed, Yangon admired Malaysia and yearned for Kuala Lumpur to share its expertise with it, especially in cutting edge fields like the Internal Security Act which they considered even more enlightened than the proviso in the American Constitution on the right to bear arms. Even so, they were a practical bunch who knew there was no problem that could not be solved through the suitable application of high grade explosive. The generals were liberals in the sense that their people had a right to state their views with the proviso that they did not have to be listened to. But they were conservatives as well because they believed that freedom was worth any price but that also came with yet another proviso: if you didn’t have the money, you couldn’t have it. It was Catch 22 stuff, the kind of clear and lucid thinking that impressed the Zimbabwean president mightily and he wondered if he could blame his countrýs 150 per cent inflation rate on neglect by the United States. The United States without Zimbabwe, he thundered to an assembled throng of the United Nations, “is like a ! sh without a bicycle.” And like Myanmar, he knew he was right. Because a hundred thousand lemmings could not be wrong. S. Jayasankaran is the bureau chief of Singapore’s Business Times and can becontacted at sankaranjaya@yahoo.com.

Source: Malay Mail – May 14, 2008